My theme for this year’s Blogging A to Z Challenge is travel. Which is why it’s probably a little weird that today’s post is about Edwardsville, Illinois. It’s certainly not some hot tourist destination, but it’s a place my husband and I enjoy traveling to as often as we can. That’s because our daughter attends school at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville.

Edwardsville is approximately 20 miles from St. Louis, so a short drive away can yield you all the Budweiser your heart desires. If you like St. Louis, then Edwardsville might be a stop for you before you get there.

Personally, I enjoy the small town feel of Edwardsville. It’s a college town without looking or feeling like a college town. The college students have been embraced, but the town still retains much of its quaint feel. One of the things I really appreciate about Edwardsville is the beautiful SIUE campus. The school is set on the outskirts of town on acres and acres of woods. It is an open campus school but feels much more like a closed campus school because the only reason for anyone to really be at the heart of the campus is for school-related reasons. Since it’s not smack dab in the middle of town, there isn’t a lot of traffic that is just cruising through campus. This is a good thing in particular for all the wildlife that lives on campus — and I’m not talking about the college kids 🙂 Deer and geese are easily seen all over campus. In fact, when my husband and I visited Becky for parents’ weekend her freshman year, we stumbled upon a couple of deer as we walking to her dorm. Those deer didn’t care about us at all. They weren’t the least bit scared. That’s how often they encounter people.

The deer my husband and I encountered waling to my daughter’s dorm.

The geese, on the other hand, are much maligned residents of the SIUE campus. They are legendarily aggressive and students are commonly chased across campus by them. The students get emails about the behaviors of the geese as well as suggestions about which entrances to avoid at certain buildings because of their nests.

I know that Edwardsville is more than just the SIUE campus, but to me, the two are intertwined. How much I love the campus of that school is how much I love Edwardsville. It might not be a vacation spot, but it is a lovely town and a great place to send your kid to school.

Enjoy these pictures taken on the campus of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.